My Earliest Recollections Are Of The
Codfish On The Meeting-House Spires In New England, - His Sacred Tail
Pointing The Way The Wind Went.
I did not know then why this emblem
should be placed upon a house of worship, any more than I knew why
codfish-balls appeared always upon the Sunday breakfast-table.
But
these associations invested this plebeian fish with something of a
religious character, which he has never quite lost, in my mind.
Having attributed the quiet of Baddeck on Sunday to religion, we did
not know to what to lay the quiet on Monday. But its peacefulness
continued. I have no doubt that the farmers began to farm, and the
traders to trade, and the sailors to sail; but the tourist felt that
he had come into a place of rest. The promise of the red sky the
evening before was fulfilled in another royal day. There was an
inspiration in the air that one looks for rather in the mountains
than on the sea-coast; it seemed like some new and gentle compound of
sea-air and land-air, which was the perfection of breathing material.
In this atmosphere, which seemed to flow over all these Atlantic
isles at this season, one endures a great deal of exertion with
little fatigue; or he is content to sit still, and has no feeling of
sluggishness. Mere living is a kind of happiness, and the easy-going
traveler is satisfied with little to do and less to see, Let the
reader not understand that we are recommending him to go to Baddeck.
Far from it.
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